The Inheritance Games

This is a puzzle box of a novel: every chapter hands you a riddle, a hidden room, or a lie, and dares you to solve it before Avery does. It's for readers who devoured Knives Out, love heiress-with-a-target-on-her-back plots, and want a mystery that treats its teenage heroine's brain as the most dangerous weapon in the house. The grandsons are the hook; the question of why she was chosen is the trap.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Will

   Avery Grambs, a 17-year-old high school student, is called out of class and told by a lawyer that she has been named in the will of billionaire Tobias Hawthorne, whom she has never met. When she arrives at Hawthorne House in Texas, it gets worse — or better, depending on your tolerance for danger. Tobias Hawthorne has left her virtually his entire fortune (about $46 billion), disinheriting his four grandsons (Grayson, Jameson, Nash, and Xander) and his daughters. The catch: to keep the money, Avery must live in Hawthorne House for a full year, surrounded by the family she just bankrupted. During the formal will reading, the lawyer reads Tobias Hawthorne's letter to his family: "I'm sorry. I know you're angry. I know you have questions. You'll find the answers. I promise." Each grandson inherits a single object — a ring, a compass, a key, a chess piece — which sounds like an insult until you remember who chose them. Grayson, the coldly formal executor who believes she conned his grandfather; he tells her the gold signet ring engraved with the Hawthorne crest means nothing, then stares at it with an expression she can't read. Jameson receives a compass that does not point north. He immediately begins spinning it, telling Avery that his grandfather loved puzzles and that the compass is a clue to something larger. Xander receives an ornate key that fits no known lock in Hawthorne House. He wears it on a chain around his neck and tells Avery that his grandfather always said the best secrets are hidden in plain sight. Nash receives a black knight chess piece. He barely reacts, but later Avery notices him turning it over in his fingers while staring out a window at the estate's hedge maze. Avery has inherited a fortune, four enemies, and a puzzle nobody has solved yet.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Game Begins

   Jameson, the playful, puzzle-obsessed one who quotes Lewis Carroll, leads Avery to the library. Jameson leads Avery to the Hawthorne House library, a two-story room with a spiral staircase and a stained-glass ceiling. He shows her a hidden passage behind a bookshelf, activated by pulling a specific volume of Shakespeare. In the hidden passage, Jameson and Avery find a riddle carved into the wall: 'I am not alive, but I grow; I don't have lungs, but I need air; I don't have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?' Jameson answers, 'Fire,' and a panel slides open. The panel reveals a small compartment containing a charred piece of wood and a note in Tobias Hawthorne's handwriting: 'The beginning is the end.' Jameson explains that his grandfather was obsessed with games and left puzzles for the boys their entire lives. Avery and Jameson explore the hedge maze at night. At the center, they find a stone bench with a chessboard carved into it. The black knight piece from Nash's inheritance fits perfectly into a slot on the board, triggering a mechanism that reveals a hidden drawer. Inside the hidden drawer in the maze, they find a photograph of a young woman who looks strikingly like Avery. On the back, in Tobias Hawthorne's handwriting, is written: 'Emily. The price of the game.' Avery realizes the woman is not her, but the resemblance is uncanny. The family closes ranks around her. Avery meets Tobias Hawthorne's two daughters, Zara and Skye, who are openly hostile. Skye, Jameson's mother, tells Avery, 'You're not the first girl my father plucked out of obscurity. You won't be the last.' Zara threatens legal action. Grayson takes Avery to the estate's underground shooting range. He tells her that their grandfather taught all the grandsons to shoot, and that the day he died, Grayson was the one who found him. He says, 'You don't belong here, Mystery Girl.' Xander shows Avery the observatory on the roof of Hawthorne House. He explains that Tobias Hawthorne had it built for his late wife, Alice, who loved the stars. Xander says, 'Granddad always said the answers are in the stars, but I think he just liked making us look up.'

3. 3

   Act 3

   Fire and Debt

   Jameson discovers that his compass points not to magnetic north but to specific locations around the estate. He and Avery follow it to a boathouse on the lake, where they find a locked chest with a keyhole matching Xander's key. Using Xander's key, they open the chest and find a journal belonging to Tobias Hawthorne. The first entry reads: 'If you are reading this, you have accepted the challenge. There are four parts. Four grandsons. Four inheritances. One truth.' The journal reveals that Tobias Hawthorne knew Avery's mother, who died years ago. He writes that he owed a debt to her and that Avery is the key to righting an old wrong. He does not specify what the wrong was. Someone sets fire to the boathouse while Avery and Jameson are inside. They escape through a trapdoor into the lake. Jameson pulls Avery to shore, and she realizes the fire was set deliberately—someone wants her gone or dead. After the fire, Grayson accuses Jameson of staging the incident to manipulate Avery. The two brothers nearly come to blows in the Great Room before Nash steps between them and says, 'This is what he wanted. Don't you see? He's still playing us.' Even from the grave, Tobias is moving pieces. Avery confronts Alisa Ortega and demands the full truth. Alisa admits that Tobias Hawthorne's will contains a hidden clause: if Avery leaves before the year is up, the fortune reverts to the grandsons—but only if they solve his final puzzle. Everyone in Hawthorne House now has a reason to keep her close, or make her run.

4. 4

   Act 4

   One Truth

   The four grandsons and Avery piece together the final riddle from clues in the ring, compass, key, and chess piece. It leads them to a secret room beneath the library, where they find a letter addressed to all five of them. Tobias Hawthorne's final letter reads: 'You've made it this far. Now you know the truth: I didn't choose Avery to punish you. I chose her because she's the only one who can save you. The game isn't over. It's just beginning.' The letter is signed with a chess notation symbol. Avery decides to stay at Hawthorne House. Jameson tells her, 'Welcome to the game, Heiress.' She looks out at the estate and realizes that Tobias Hawthorne's puzzles are far from solved—and that someone outside the family is still watching her every move. The inheritance came with a target on it, and the year has only started.

• AAvery GrambsA seventeen-year-old high schooler who inherits $46 billion from a stranger and must survive a year in his house to keep it. She came for answers; she stays because walking away means the puzzle wins.
• TTobias HawthorneThe dead billionaire whose will is his final game. He owed Avery's mother a debt, left his grandsons riddles instead of money, and keeps playing from beyond the grave.
• JJameson HawthorneThe playful, puzzle-obsessed grandson who quotes Lewis Carroll and treats the inheritance as the greatest game ever staged. He pulls Avery into the mystery — and into the line of fire.
• GGrayson HawthorneThe coldly formal executor certain Avery conned his grandfather. He found Tobias dead, distrusts her at the shooting range, and accuses his own brother of staging the fire.
• NNash HawthorneThe oldest grandson, a cowboy who distrusts Avery — until he's the one stepping between his feuding brothers, naming the dead man as the real player.
• XXander HawthorneThe youngest, who declares Avery his best friend on sight and wears a key that fits no lock in the house. He shows her the observatory and his grandfather's love of looking up.
• SSkye and Zara HawthorneTobias's disinherited daughters. Skye sneers that Avery won't be the last girl her father plucked from obscurity; Zara reaches for lawyers.
• AAlisa OrtegaThe keeper of the will's fine print. Under pressure from Avery, she reveals the hidden clause that turns the whole family into puzzle-solvers.

The Black Knight

Nash's chess piece is the only inheritance that physically completes a mechanism — it fits a slot on the maze's carved chessboard and opens the drawer holding Emily's photograph. The knight moves in an L-shape, jumping over other pieces: the perfect emblem for a dead man still making moves the living can't predict, and for Avery, the outsider dropped onto the board.

The Compass

Jameson's compass doesn't point north — it points to locations around the estate, leading them to the boathouse and the journal. It stands for Tobias's habit of misdirection: the instrument that should orient you instead pulls you deeper into his design. Its failure to work normally is the whole inheritance in miniature.

The Key

Xander's ornate key fits no known lock in Hawthorne House, yet opens the boathouse chest holding Tobias's journal. It embodies his grandfather's saying that the best secrets are hidden in plain sight — worn openly around a teenager's neck, useless at home, decisive elsewhere.

Fire

The riddle's answer — not alive but growing, killed by water — becomes real when the boathouse burns with Avery and Jameson inside. Fire is the game's answer to puzzles: the destructive force that can't be out-thought, only survived. It marks the moment someone stops playing by Tobias's rules.

The ending refuses to close the box. Tobias's final letter reframes the entire will — Avery wasn't a punishment for the grandsons but their salvation, a claim the book never fully explains, which is exactly what keeps the series breathing. Read one way, it's a dying man's manipulation: even his redemption arc is a move in the game, signed with a chess notation symbol like a gambit on a board. Read another, it's sincere — a man who owed a debt paying it the only way he knew, through puzzles because puzzles were his love language. Avery's choice to stay is the real climax: she could walk away from a fortune, a hostile family, and an arsonist, and she stays anyway, which means the money stopped being the point somewhere along the way. Jameson's "Welcome to the game, Heiress" lands as both welcome and warning. The last image — puzzles unsolved, someone outside the family still watching — converts the ending from resolution to invitation, and that's why it works: the mystery you finished is the tutorial for the mystery you now need.

1. 1.Is Tobias Hawthorne's final letter an act of redemption or his last manipulation? Weigh the hidden clause, the journal's admitted debt, and Nash's line that he's "still playing us."
2. 2.The will disinherits daughters and grandsons alike to force a stranger into the family. What does the novel argue about whether money can be used to engineer love, loyalty, or redemption?
3. 3.Emily is "the price of the game" and Avery's mother is an unexplained debt. Discuss how the book uses dead women as the engine of its plot — and whether Avery escapes being a piece on someone else's board.

Readers who want their mysteries interactive — riddles in the walls, clues in the fine print, a heroine who thinks her way out of a burning building. Perfect for fans of heiress-in-peril plots and families that weaponize a will.

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